But no poet's word could henceforth stay the wild conflagration which
raged in his heart; and every thought by which his mind strove to
obtain rest and clearness proved a faint-hearted hireling soldier that
takes the first opportunity of deserting to the ranks of the more
potent foe. In vain did he recall the arguments by which, in a certain
memorable conversation, he had tried to refute Erna's assertions--it
had been a lie, a lie--or, at best, mere theoretical twaddle. His love
a reminiscence merely? And of what, pray? Perhaps of that mournful
aberration when his heart, his thirty years notwithstanding, was
still full of faith and devoid of experience? Or of the coquettish
phantom-fights and ugly caricatures of passion with which a heart that
has ceased to believe, in love, endeavours to deceive itself regarding
its own needs? Thee, he exclaimed, thee I have always loved. My whole
life has been one unbroken longing for thee; and when now at length I
have reached the land of promise, am I solely to see it, bless God, and
die? I am no longer weary of life. Nay, life has never yet appeared so
fair to me, and never yet have I so felt the desire and the power to
enjoy it. Die we must; die, however empty life may have been; but oh,
how better far to die in the full bliss of love! No, no! If I love her,
my only reminiscence is one of weary deserts traversed until I reached
her: if she could love me, her love should be no mere mirage of an
oasis in the future; palms should rustle above her fair head, silvery
brooks should run at her feet. Love surely has this potent spell: it
can create a paradise on earth!
And from these fairy dreams of future bliss he was startled by the
thought that Erna's heart must have already once received some mighty
impression. For it was surely passing strange that she knew so well how
to interpret some of the mysterious symbols in the book of passion;
that she evidently liked to read in that book. But since all his
cautious questioning led to no result, since she spoke of the few young
men whom she seemed to know at all either with indifference, or even,
as in the case of her two cousins, with a perceptible touch of irony,
he could not but conclude that his suspicion was unfounded, and he
became more and more familiar with a fond hope, from which he at first
recoiled as from a temptation to sheer madness.
But he still had the full use of his senses, and they, had never been
so acute as now. How was he to explain that her voice, whenever she
turned to him, and particularly when they were alone, was quite
different from its usual tone--softer, deeper, more intense? How was he
to explain that she--surely without being aware of it--kept sometimes,
at table, if he happened to speak eagerly, her gaze fixed upon him for
several minutes--that strange, fixed gaze which he had never before met
from any human eye, and which reminded him again and again of the gaze
of the gods,--
"Whose eyelids quiver not like those of mortals;"
and then when he ceased to, speak she was like one awakening from a
dream, drawing a long breath, which caused her maiden bosom to rise and
sink!
Nor were other promising tokens wanting. He had, for good reasons of
his own, disregarded Erna's request to be henceforth less kind to
Lydia; nay, he had doubled his attentions and courtesies, not only
towards the coquettish lady, but towards the Baron too. It seemed so
easy now to pardon, to show indulgence, to look at all things from the
best and most amiable point of view; and politeness is a veil behind
which one may hide so much. At first he had been prepared for
opposition or serious displeasure on the part of the proud, self-willed
girl; but nothing of the kind occurred; she either seemed not to notice
his disobedience, or actually to approve of it; and once or twice, when
he somewhat overdid his part, a meaning smile played about her mouth.
Nay, more, she followed, though with evident hesitation, his example;
she no longer met Lydia's fantastic exaggerations with short and sharp
replies, or with that frigid non-recognition which is more cutting than
direct blame: she continued, as on the first evening or two, to sing
and play with the Baron; she even suffered herself to be put into the
famous terrace picture, and was patient enough to sit to him for a
couple of hours, in which the Baron, with his brush, was constantly
taking one step forward and two backward, as it were; while he vowed
again and again that this was the most grateful, but also the most
difficult, task which he had ever undertaken in his life.
And there was yet one thing more which had struck him as peculiarly
strange and important. Erna was accustomed to repeat her interlocutors'
names frequently in the course of conversation, and to add them, even
to quite trivial phrases or questions. From the first days of his
visit he still recalled with delight her sweet "How are you, Uncle
Bertram?"--"Yes, Uncle Bertram"--"No, Uncle Bertram." But sweeter,
sweeter far it seemed to him that he now no longer heard it--no, not
once--that her conversation now was plain yea and nay, as enjoined in
Holy Writ, and quite in accordance with the wild wish of his heart.
Hilarie, too, had surely ceased to call her lover--Uncle. Poor Major!
But it served him right, after all, for it was not youth so much that
he lacked, as the courage and force of genuine passion.
"That man must ever be a youthful man
Who is well-pleasing to a maiden's eyes!"
And he does please her well, because she feels with the unerring
instinct of true love that he can and will give love for love.
And as though he would force Fate to grant him all, because he was
staking his all upon it, he looked on with a happy smile, whilst the
fire of his great love burned up with increasing vehemence with every
day, with every hour, spreading around and engulfing his entire being.
He was proud that he could no longer feel anything else, think of
anything else, but always her, and her alone. If she was away, how
empty, how barren did the whole world seem! With what painful
impatience did he await the moment when he should behold her again; and
when he beheld her again, it seemed as though he had never beheld her
before--as though the Creator had but just uttered the command: "Let
there be light!" and as though the world lay before him in all the dewy
freshness and brightness of the morn of creation.
Then, when the torment of delight became overpowering, he fled from
her, to dream, often for hours, in the solitude of the forest, in lone,
rocky caves, or on sunny summits--to listen in the deep silence around
for the echoing of her sweet voice within his heart, to whisper her
loved name to the discreet herbs and trees; to hear that name in the
murmur of the brooks, in the rustling of the breezes, in every note of
the birds' songs; to see her fair image smiling down upon him from
among the dainty white cloudlets that flecked the deep-blue sky, or
gazing at him with musing gravity from the dusky shadows of the
towering trees, gazing with those great, still, potent, godlike orbs.
That those orbs were now smiling more rarely, that they were fuller of
gravest thought, often gazing with a certain sweet fixity of intensest
concentration, he had not failed to observe, and he had not interpreted
it as a symptom unfavourable to himself; how should, how could it be
otherwise, if there fell into her young soul even the faintest reflex
of the bright radiancy that was filling his own to its deepest depths?
But he had not failed to observe either, and this he knew not how to
explain, that this musing gravity from which his own love in its
hopefulness drew sweetest sustenance--like a bee from the chalice of a
budding blossom--was turning to a gloomy indignation, which not only
was for ever veiling the beloved eyes, but was not unfrequently
enfolding the fair face with its fine, energetic features in darkest
night, luridly illumined by wrathful flashes.
This startling change had occurred quite suddenly, coincident,
strangely enough, with the day, almost with the hour, of Agatha's
arrival.